Event Video: How social media is shaping sponsorship strategy

We had a great event last week that looked at social media and sponsorship – you can get a flavour of the discussion in the video. One of the things that came up was that five, or even three years ago, social media rights were rarely part of a rights agreement. But now, for many sponsors it’s in their top five requests and they have questions. Where is the social media plan? What channels (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) are available to me? How can I monetise them?

This means that a rights holder with a sophisticated social media rights package become more attractive.

We also discussed that while social media means a sponsor can communicate directly with fans, consumers, colleagues or peers (to name a few!) , it needs to done in an authentic way. It is certainly not, as one speaker said, a case of just dumping a marketing plan on a social network!

We hope you enjoy the video. You can click here to download the presentations from Sony-Ericsson and IEG. Please feel free to share with colleagues – enjoy!

Ian Budd

Social media and sponsorship - the opportunity

“I just don’t have time for social media”, was a conversation I overheard yesterday. “I am not sure why I need social networking” said the head of one of the UK’s most prestigious business schools to me recently. These comments highlight the challenge (not an insurmountable one) of demonstrating the value of social media in certain business contexts.

The role of social media for sponsors and rightsholders is much clearer. It presents a huge opportunity. Social media campaigns work best where the interests and passions of people intersect with a brand rather than being interrupted by a brand. Sponsorship can be at that intersection when it participates in a way that adds value for the fan.

So how best to exploit this intersection between fan and brand? Coming from a communications background, I see two key things that matter.

It’s possible to be blinded by the plethora of social media platforms - wikis, life-streams, social book marking, micro-blogs etc. But fundamentally what counts is the quality and relevance of the content - not the platform. The other thing is that the most effective social media campaigns are integrated. By that I mean they don’t just live in a social media bubble – they use offline and online PR, advertising and activity on owned media such as websites to drive traffic and engagement.

A couple of examples. We were recently tasked with increasing the number of fans on the Sony Ericsson Miami Open page on Facebook. The platform already existed. What we did was to post engaging content on a regular basis – things like behind the scenes videos and voting events for fans. The result was an increase in membership from 500 to 8000 over a few months. In case you missed it - Susan Boyle’s youtube video has a mind-boggling 40 million views. That was all started by the ‘traditional media’ - a TV show, then a feeding frenzy by the print media.

By Adam Lewis